It is a strange thing to learn that everything you once knew about yourself was a complete lie, or simply smoke and mirrors, at best. Julia had that very experience as a grown woman, just when her mother passed away and she was told the true story about her heritage: she wasn’t truly a creature of this world. It was up to her dad to tell the tale of her late mother. Aerith had been a fae born in a realm called the Otherlands. Forced by her family into a marriage she never wanted, the only escape Aerith found for herself and her newborn daughter out of the clutches of her despicable husband was to abandon her world altogether. Aerith knew about the world beyond, the World of Man, and so she fled and passed the portal to get to it. Adjusting to a new world wasn’t easy, but fate saw it fit to put her in the path of the kindest man she ever knew. Esteban Monter was a Mexican historian and a student of folklore from many countries, a gentle traveler that offered assistance in her time of need. Friendship bound them together and eventually also love. When Aerith revealed the truth about her he didn’t hesitate to keep her secret and keep both her and her child safe. The two got married after a few years and Aerith had already taken a human name to keep appearances. Life was good to them for many years but Aerith had decided against telling her daughter anything about her origin in order to protect her, and also to avoid having her develop any curiosity over the Otherlands or the man who truly fathered her. But when illness took Aerith just a few months ago, Esteban had tell his daughter the truth because the immense pain of losing her mother abruptly triggered Julia’s fae powers, most notably her Empathy. Julia was never prone to sickness and always showed a perceptive nature regarding other people’s emotions, but this was another thing entirely. Her own pain has continually been linking her to other people’s sadness in the most maddening way.
Life as she knew it was over. All her life Julia had worked hard to make a name for herself in the fashion industry and only two years ago she’s begun to have her name and her brand featured in important fashion magazines. She has started to dress celebrities for red carpet events and have the country’s most relevant influencers laud her creations. Her boutique in the upscale Polanco area of Mexico City has garnered her the success and recognition she’s fought so hard to obtain in such a difficult industry… but she had to leave it all behind. Whether it’s something temporary or permanent is yet to be determined. The unwanted abilities that kept sprouting here and there have forced her to leave her home, her work, her family, in order to lay low somewhere safe while she learns how the hell to control what’s happening to her. She couldn’t risk having electrokinetic mishaps in the middle of her boutique or burst out crying at some restaurant in front of her date because their waiter’s grandma had died and she could feel all of it. So she ended up trading her cosmopolitan city for the quaint town of Lethe to figure out how to cope with her rather annoying and peculiar situation.
Julia arrived to the town in the middle of April and settling in hasn’t been as easy as she thought it would be, not only because she misses terribly all she left behind but also because the whole experience has been so surreal since she first set foot in the town. The new fae is still wrapping her head around the fact that not only isn’t she human, but everyone else in town happens to be some kind of supernatural being that she was certain existed in legend and folklore only. There’s no denying that Julia has yet to find her place in this town and amongst this eclectic community, but mostly, she has to find who she is after so many things fractured and changed in her life, causing her to feel more lost than she’s ever felt before.